In his weekly fishing reports, one of the best native florida fishing guides, capt. butch rickey reveals secrets of backcountry fishing and flats fishing in the waters of pine island sound around sanibel island, captiva island, and pine island. in his weekly florida fishing reports he tells all about snook fishing, redfish fishing, tarpon fishing, and trout fishing. the secrets are free! a guided fishing trip is a bargain!

REPORT FOR THE WEEK ENDING 12/1/2001

by

Capt. Butch Rickey

There are only two trips to report on for the week. We (I) at least, are entering the slow period that always come before and right after Christmas. Things aren't back to normal, yet, anyway.
Monday was the first guided flats trip in southwest Florida, for Roz Holley. I met Roz through a long time friend of mine, and Roz loves to fish as much as an woman I ever met. She lives in Englewood on a canal with access to Lemon Bay, and fishes almost every morning. She catches mostly trout, ladyfish, and stuff, and I wanted to get her into some nice redfish.
We faced a pretty poor tide this day, but I was hopeful that I could get something going for her with some heavy chumming. We headed to the causeway, where Roz expertly handled the new Talon, and were loaded with bait in a couple of throws.
It was a beautiful morning to be out, and I figured I could get a bite going, but I also knew it would be hard to sustain a good bite on the reds with only one angler in the boat. It's actually easier with two or three anglers, because you can have more baits out, and there's someone to handle each rod. It's very hard to work three or four rods with just two anglers. I chummed a combination of live shiners and threads, and fresh cut ones, and it wasn't long before we had our first hit. Roz was thrilled with the pull of the redfish. It took very little coaching from me before she was totally in the groove and showing those reds how it is done. We had our share of messes, trying to handle too many rigs, but Roz boated 8 nice redfish, one nice trout, and a jack crevalle.
Roz had to make a trip to Jacksonville that day, so we called it quits when the bite stopped with the end of the incoming tide at around ten o'clock. Not a bad three hours of fishing. Roz said that was the most reds she'd ever caught in a single outing, and I was happy.
It was a different story on Tuesday with my friend Don Gottschalk and his friend. The tide was a little better than on Monday, although marginally, but the reds and snook had lockjaw. We easily caught great bait, and had plenty to chum with, but the fish just wouldn't turn on. We only caught one big 28 inch redfish when we first got on the flat.
Earlier on the tide we had fished potholes and caught lots of nice speckled trout, thankfully. The trout actually made our catching day, but they're out of season for harvest right now. We ended the day with a great lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant on Pine Island. It was good to see Don, again, and he was understanding of the fishing.
It's looking like it's going to be a real slow December. That's a shame, as so far the weather is pure Chamber of Commerce that we dream about this time of year. The reports will probably be brief until we get to Christmas week. Seems everyone wants to fish then. Stay tuned.

FISH OF THE WEEK!

A beautiful Pine Island Sound redfish!
The downturn in business because of the slow economy, and now further because of the attrocities of September 11, has had me and some of my friends brainstorming how we can generate trips, generate cash flow, and therefore stay in business through the tough times we have ahead of us. Here are the first two ideas I will put forward. First, since December and January are normally my only slow months of the year, I am fearful of just how slow they could be this year. I am going to roll back the cost of my half day trip to last year's rate of $325 for anyone booking in December and January. Further, if you would like to prepay your trip, no matter when you have it booked, either in lump sum, or in three or four installments, I will discount the trip by $25. Your trip must be paid at least a month in advance to earn the discount. With the market in such a slump and interest rates still declining, that's a much better return on your trip fee than leaving it in the bank until trip time.
So, come on folks. It's time to get out and enjoy your favorite pastime, in your favorite vacation destination. Let's show Osama Bin Lunatic that he can't beat us with economic terrorism, either.
I have now posted the final thumbnailed pictures on the Talon Page of this website, for those interested in seeing how one of these jewels goes together.

IMPORTANT

If you want to be able to continue to fish Florida waters please follow this link, "Manatee Zones: How You Can Help" and please take the time to become involved, even if you don't live in Florida. Let the politicians know WHY you come to Florida on vacation!

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